TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY; In Utah, Public Works Project in Digital

By MATT RICHTEL

Published: November 17, 2003

SALT LAKE CITY—
When it comes to the Internet, residents of Utah are taking matters into their own hands.

In a 21st-century twist on Roosevelt-era public works projects, Salt Lake City and 17 other Utah cities are planning to build the largest ultrahigh-speed digital network in the country.

Construction on the project is scheduled to start next spring -- if the cities can raise the money to pull it off. The network would be capable of delivering data over the Internet to homes and businesses at speeds 100 times faster than current commercial residential offerings. It would also offer digital television and telephone services through the Internet.

With a $470 million price tag, the project is considered one of the most ambitious efforts in the world to deploy fiber optic cables, which carry data in bursts of light over glass fibers. Though it has not received much attention outside the area, the project has raised questions here about the role of government, particularly from telecommunications companies, which are starting to complain about the prospect of competing against a publicly sponsored digital network.

The cities involved argue that reliable access to high-speed data is so important to their goals of improving education and advancing economic growth that the project should be seen as no more controversial than the traditional public role in building roads, bridges, sewers and schools -- as well as electric power systems, which are often municipally owned in the Western United States.

Data infrastructure ''is not a nicety,'' said Paul T. Morris, executive director for the project, which he has named Utopia, a stylized acronym for the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency. ''It's an essential economic growth issue,'' he added. ''The best network in the U.S. will be in Utah -- not in New York, not in Chicago, not in Los Angeles.''

Its advocates say that Utopia will give participating cities a leg up in attracting sophisticated companies and highly educated, technology-minded individuals. The network is expected to be available to 723,000 residents in 248,000 households and 34,500 businesses. Prices would vary considerably depending on the service, though basic high-speed Internet access is expected to cost about $28 a month.

But private sector competitors and taxpayer groups assert that the cities and their residents face a high level of financial risk for a network that may far exceed their needs. Telephone and cable companies nationwide are scrambling to build networks relying on less expensive, less advanced technology that they argue will be perfectly adequate for many years to come.

Jerry Fenn, the president of the Utah division of Qwest, the regional telephone company here that provides its own high-speed Internet access, said there were few uses yet for the network Utopia plans to deliver.

The speeds to be provided ''are way more than what most consumers need in their home,'' Mr. Fenn said, adding, ''Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?''

The notion of building extensive fiber optic networks may raise painful memories for many investors. During the latter half of the 1990's, several telecommunications companies lost billions of dollars when they laid fiber across the country -- and under the ocean -- in anticipation of huge demands that failed to materialize.

But the Utopia project, which has been in the works for 18 months, is different. It is an attempt to complete a direct fiber optic connection to the home -- an ambition that collapsed in the telecommunications bust. And its advocates argue that the best way to advance digital technology is for a public entity to build a common fiber optic connection as a utility for all potential users rather than relying on the competition among private rivals that helped foster the over-investment debacle at the turn of the century.

The Utopia effort, while by far the largest to date, is not the first attempt by municipalities to build an Internet infrastructure. In the spirit of power utilities, a small but growing number of local governments are investing in high-speed networks that far exceed current commercial speeds. But the efforts so far have tended to be in rural areas.

As of October, only 180,300 homes had direct access to fiber optic lines; 64,700 were actually connected, according to Render, Vanderslice & Associates, a market research firm in Tulsa, Okla.

''This is a very powerful test case,'' said Sharon Gillett, a research associate at M.I.T.'s center for technology, policy and industrial development. ''If Utopia succeeds, it will be the first really large-scale deployment of fiber to the home in the United States.''

Most people still reach the Internet from their homes through dial-up connections over copper telephone lines, typically limited to delivering data at 56.6 kilobits per second. That speed works well for things like e-mail messages, but it can be frustrating when using graphics-rich Web pages or downloading music and other larger files.